Actually, Armstrong knows her sources (I've read both her biography of Muhammad and A History of God), but creates contorted rationalizations or tries to shame the West. In the first chapter of the biography of Muhammad, she rationalizes Muslim rage over Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses by comparing it to book-burnings in the West centuries ago. As an intelligent Christian noted, the Western fear is a return to the days of book-burning in Nazi Germany.